Overview
- India has 20,944 ophthalmologists, below the 25,000 target set for eliminating avoidable blindness by 2030.
- The country averages one ophthalmologist per 65,221 people, with 15 per million and 74 dedicated eye beds per million.
- Private providers run 70.6% of surveyed institutes versus 15.6% public and 13.8% NGO, with profitable services more available in private centres and eye banking concentrated in the public sector.
- Only 40.5% of institutes offer 24-hour eye emergency services, 87% have functional operation theatres, and 5.7% report eye-banking with tissue processing and storage.
- Service availability is highly uneven, ranging from 127 ophthalmologists per million in Puducherry to two in Ladakh, with severe shortages in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and West Bengal.